“Farmers’ markets are a wonderful way to put community in touch with primary producers, i.e. farmers. While there is a financial motivation for farmers, and a bit of gluttony by purchasers, it’s what makes locally sustainable agriculture possible.”

I have always enjoyed farmers’ markets, both as a customer, and as a way to contribute to community. Thus I’m on the board of the Bloomington Winter Farmers Market.

In the larger picture, any number of people want to give back to their community, perhaps all people, and while there are any number or organizations one can contribute to, some nonprofits are too small to get off the ground, or someone has an idea for their own.
That’s where the CSL can help: by providing the nonprofit status that can be hard to get or maintain for small organizations, we can potentiate a lot of great activity. This can be unglamorous: the CSL is a bookkeeper, tax preparer, some legal oversight…You won’t necessarily see us “at the front lines”, but we can back up many others. My vision is that the CSL will continue to offer this to Bloomington; I think we need to attract more volunteers to the CSL who appreciate this nerdy activity and, as we grow, allow the CSL to support more organizations. At the moment we need help getting the word out that the CSL exists, and all that it has to offer.